September 2003

2 September

Waiting for this trip to begin has been rather fun. We have gone to
many skate parks and done many exciting things including waterparks and
theme parks. However, it has also been a bit depressing because of
leaving all my friends behind. During this time there have been many
fun things to do and see. Some of these things I would not like to
forget. I know that my parents feel the opposite of what I feel. For
them this months has not been as exciting as it has been for me. It was
mostly working and keeping us entertained.

Probably the best things that happened were the skateparks, theme parks,
and waterparks. I went to many skateparks I don't want to forget. The
most notable being Runaway Bay skate park, Nerang skate park and The
Alex skate park. All of them have a wide variety of ramps to jump off,
and great lines. Theme parks and waterparks made up the most exciting
and exotic of the waiting times. We went to two theme parks and one
waterpark. The theme parks were Dreamworld and Sea World. Dreamworld
was more ride oriented and had our favorite ride. Drop Zone is one of
two rides on Terror Tower. Terror Tower is 500 feet high. The ride
consist of a car that seats 8 and an engine that pulls you to the to
top where you wait for 30 seconds before plummeting 500 feet. Sea World
is more of a zoo than an amusement park. They have a few rides, the
best being Bermuda Triangle, an Indian Jones type ride, only on water,
and one very simple roller coaster. They had two of the funniest Polar
bears you'll ever see and have a pool with a giant Groper in it.
Gropers are huge fish that reside in tropical waters. The are currently
constructing Shark Bay, the largest shark Aquairium in Oz. The only
waterpark was Wet'n'Wild Water World. For more info see last weeks
Journal entry.

4 September

We finally started on our journey around the Pacific.

Yesterday we had our first overnight sail. It was ok except for the
fact that I couldn't eat anything without it coming out the way it came
in. Because of this I was positively ravenous when we got into port at
Moolooba.

The night itself was pretty fun. Nikki and I set up a bed outside in
the cabin. I slept there for an hour and then went into my cabin after
barfing for the 3rd time. I woke up again at around six and had a
brekkie bar, which turned out to be a bad idea, I bet you can guess.
When we got on land I had two bowls of cereal and a couple sandwiches

On sunday we finally went sailing with Luke, a friend of mine. We
attached ourselves to the safety line and jumped with the waves on the
trampoline. We would time our jumps so that we would jump trice as
high. When we got back we started to make a boat out of matchsticks and
scootered around the area. Later we had dinner with them.

6 September

Yesterday we arrived in Tin Can Bay. We anchored in Pelican Bay. That
night we didn't do much, except lower the crab pot in the hopes of
catching some. We had miso soup and went to bed. The next morning we
had an enormous brekkie: hashbrowns, bacon, eggs and fried tomatoes.
Nikki and I attempted do pull up the crab pot, but it turn out that the
cord was tangled around the rudders. We ended up having to swim to get
it untangled. I had so much fun in the water that I convinced Nikki to
come in to. Nikki and I spent the rest of the morning swimming. When
it became time to motor through the Sandy Straights we very reluctuntly
got out. While we were sailing in the beginning momma actually caught a
fish! Unfortunately it was a puffer and we had to let it go.

8 September

Yesterday we went on a 18 kilometer hike on Fraser Island. We were led
to believe that there was a lake only six kilometers away. This was
very wrong. It was more like 16 kilometers away, one way. We never got
there. We asked some guys in a jeep how far away it was, after walking
for an hour and forty five minutes, which we calculated was 7 and a half
kilometers. They said they had been driving for 10 minutes. This is
when we decided to turn around. On the way back I overstrained my ankle
and got two blisters. I was forced to walk at an overly fast pace and
thought of it as a death march. It was not the most interesting
scenery, and, even though it is a sand island, there isn't that much
sand, but a lot of pine needles. Because of this I had to walk in
sandals. This is what gave me the blisters. The best part of the day
was that when we got back we had an enormous lunch and we saw The Lord
of The Rings The Fellowship of the Ring.

17 September

Four days ago we anchored at 2:00 in the morning. The next morning my
dad made a big brekkie and we waited for the right wind to sail into the
harbor in Gladstone. On the way we saw huge army ships coming in. The
next day we had a “vacation day'. We walked around town and had a
smoothie. The next day was the day of the hike. We hiked to the very
top of Mount Larcom. Mount Larcom is 628 meters high. The trail was
pretty hard to follow and it was so steep it was more fun going up than
it was going down. Later on on that day we say "Pirates of the
Caribbean". It was awesome. The first skeleton scene was pretty damn
surprising and the acting was awesome. Even though it was 3 days after
it opened, it wasn't that busy, because not that many people live here,
especially compared to the Bay Area. The next day I got to go to the
local Skate Park. The only good thing about that skate park was the fun
box. I got huge air over it. Today I went to the best skate Park in
the world. It had so many things it would take another paragraph to
explain it all. The best feature was the tall banks which you could
transfer onto. Right now we are about to leave for Great Keppel Island.

20 September

Two days ago we got into Great Keppel Island after sailing through the
night. Around 6 in the morning we saw a whale jump out of the water
many times. The whale was clearly black and white, a whale like that
you would never see along the Pacific US Coast. We still don't know
what kind of whale it was. The rest of the day out on anchor was fairly
uneventful, except for the discovery of a small reef Nikki and I
discovered while swimming around. Nikki actually lost her flipper in 6
meter deep water (this is 18 feet). She cried for about 10 minutes
until papa dove down and rescued her flipper. The second day was
awesome. Jeff arrived in his tinnie (this is the Australian name for a
small motor boat made out of aluminum) and we went skurfing. Skurfing
is a form of wake boarding for Australians who have a surfboard, a ski
rope, and a boat with a 50 horsepower engine on it, but they can't
afford the wake board. The solution: Use your surfboard! I found it a
lot easier than wake boarding, partly because you get up just like a
regular surfboard, except for the fact that you are holding on to the
rope. Geoff showed us how to get up and carve. Only my dad and I tried
it and we both got the hang of it. The first thing to do to get up is
scootch your knees up and knee board a little. Then you use both your
knuckles to push up and stand. Geoff's board was very small and very
sensitive to turning so it took a couple tries to get used to it. I
found it amazingly fun and relatively easy to do. Later we went to have
pizza with Geoff and some employees at our favorite pizza place, Island
Pizza. Because we are on Long Beach, which is on another side of the
island and a 20 minutes walk away from the village, we got a ride from
Geoff there and back. We rode in the back of the resort's jeep while
standing up and dodging trees and poisonous spiders. Yesterday was a
day will never forget it.

23 September

This is the second journal entry for Great Keppel Island. Three days
ago Nikki and I were kicked off the boat(which was then anchored of Main
Beach) with orders to find a snack. I knew the best cheap place to get
a snack was Geoff's resort, and we wanted to say hi to Colin anyway.
The Aussies have a Kit-Kat made with white chocolate, and these are my
favorite. Luckily the little Grocery store by the resort had them and I
got one. It is only 1 bar, but it is the equivalent of about 6 normal
sized Kit-Kats. Nikki got the all-to-common Snickers. The dinghy
wasn't rigged up with the motor, so we paddled the long board (surf
board) together. Once we got back we tried to go skurfing with the long
board and our little 5 hp motor. No luck. Even with the long board it
was too slow. Two days later, I had the attention of all the kids on
the beach. Nikki and I decided to go to the beach with the dinghy. On
the way back I performed a fancy way of turning around and every boy
looked at me with obvious envy. Later on that day we went snorkeling at
our favorite spot. I saw 4 giant clams, and one of them was a meter in
diameter! The weirdest thing was a Giant Clam that had a green
interior! I also saw the weirdest coral. It was neon green and the
tips looked like waving suckers. Back at our boat I saw a blue spotted
stingray. Today, the 23rd of September, we moved back to Long Beach.

28 September

We are in Keppel Bay Marina, just across the bay from our favorite
island. We have been here for 3 days and I have already checked out the
local skate park. Good lines, but some of the transitions were a bit
tight. Today Nikki and I have been making boats. We actually made a
boat that actually worked! Look for it in the next upgrade of the web
page. I made a boat from half of a coconut, it didn't work. It just
tipped over, filled up with water, and sunk to the bottom. It might be
cool if I put my goggles on and looked down at the spot where it sunk.
Were are planning to make another one today. I am reading these books
by Robert G. Barret. He comes up with really weird names for them, my
favorite is Mud Crab Boogie. Good books for kids my age (and older, I
say this because of the multiple es-e-ex scenes). They are interesting
because they are funny. Yesterday we hiked on some rocks ( i.e. 300
feet). Only one of them had a path. This didn't matter, we just
bushwhacked to the top. The view of the marina was awesome.